Re: OT:Thanksgiving

On Sun, 2 Dec 2007 16:11:08 -0600, "HeyBub" <heybub@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Robert wrote:

Should they be able to vote if they are in prison serving time?

A resounding YES. Here's why.

1. Prisoners are counted in the census.
2. The census is used to determine apportionment i.e. political power
in the state legislature and ultimately in US Congress.
3. Most prisons are in rural places, which are generally Republican
strongholds.
4. Prisoners receive no benefits from 'their' representatives' pork
barrel efforts.
5. The vast majority of prisoners (>90%) would vote Democratic.

Therefore, counting prisoners in the census while denying them the
vote is nothing but a ploy to give rural Republicans more political
power than they deserve.

The U.S. Constitution provides that slaves are counted, for the purpose of
the census in determining represenation, as 3/5ths of a person, yet slaves
can't vote either.

In Florida, 35% of black men over 18 could not vote (before the recent clemency), so a
black man was still 3/5 of a person.

They want the jobs created by a prison in their community, while
regarding prisoners as subhuman. Giving prisoners the vote would
raise their awareness that prisoners are people.

It could change the
attitudes of guards and provide more infrastructure support e.g. a
better road to the prison, a Visitors' Center for families. It would
change the prison from a burden into an asset.

Prisons ARE an asset, to the degree they prevent added cost. Like paint on a
house. Studies show that for every murderer put to death, 18 murders are
prevented. For every ordinary criminal locked up, 87 crimes are prevented.

Explain why the murder rate in non-penalty states is 40% lower than the rate in death
penalty states -- 4.22 versus 5.9 per 100K population.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=168
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=169


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